My hunch was correct. Fuse box was shot, got a new one in there from the junkyard and I'm talking with my DME again! I'm so close at this point I can taste it, but I'm not sure where to go next here.

What is KOMBI2? When I plugged my replacement BC1, that seemed to be working, but its definitely red now.

Thoughts, tachometer may be dying? Its more than once faulted out and has to have faults cleared to come back, but it does. I'm able to trigger it using the Ista ecu functions and in test mode all my lights and everything pop. One other neat thing, is I now have a check engine light (no obd sensor to try and read that code and not sure how to do that with Ista).

Anyone have any ideas here? Still not cranking.




EDIT: Previous owner apparently had a friend tap into the barrel connector (pin 8) and used that to basically hotwire the car. He would stick the key in, and then tap a wire to the positive terminal and the car would start. So. I copied this. I tapped into pin 8 in the engine bay barrel connector and I was able to get the car to crank, however thats it. Ista says my EWS is communicating, but could it be borked? Could it be the ignition barrel itself (but I get lights on and everything on run/acc). One thing I noticed that I hadn't seen before, if you crank the key all the way to start, and then come back a step, it doesn't let you try it again without turning off the car. Is that normal?

 

No crank without a reset of the ignition switch is common on euro cars. Probably to keep from grinding the starter/flywheel.

 

Makes sense. Got Inpa out to start analyzing. My thought was because I can hotwire the crank, that the EWS is not sending my crank signal. Anyone familiar with these codes?

 

Wanted to give you guys an update as I know the outlook was grim. Starting from the top, I had a few cut wires at the driver side footwell (3 to be precise). These were easy to piece back, but I did find one of them to be a canbus wire. Simultaneously, I took apart the BC1 and realized that it was a total loss with the white connector having sustained some damage as well.

Starting here, I replaced the BC1 with an equivalent junkyard board. I also fixed the white plug using some pins from the junkyard wires. In Ista, this immediately gave me some comms back. Things were looking good.

Next I started checking that my fuses were good, including the fuses underneath the engine box. Remember the scene from zoolander where they destroy the computer? That was me looking for the fuses. Unbeknownst to me, I damaged my fusebox here.

I kept tracing out wires because I could no longer speak to the ecu and was still getting communication errors, checking clusters and modules, the works. Eventually I was smart enough to go get a replacement fuse box and immediately my DME was communicating. This was great, still didn't have auxiliary cluster talking (Kombi2) but I could see info on the tach and it seemed like it was working. But still no start. I could hotwire the car but couldn't use a key to turn it on.

Finally I went to the junkyard again and got a replacement tach, this cleared up the Kombi2 and all my modules were green and happy. This led me into the EWS and ignition. Had continuity everywhere so that was good, but realized I wasn't getting my voltage at the start signal on the ignition. Back to the junkyard and I grabbed a few ignition modules (I was tired of going at this point). Replaced my current one, put the key in, prayed, and it started immediately.

I'm still amazed I got it working, and not nearly as ghettoly as I thought itd be. All the systems are still in place and happy, everything's talking as they should. And now I've got my dream car running and driving (albeit still needs love) for under 3k. Twas a good day. Thanks all for the help!

 

Nice work, dude! Congrats